Books like Indo-European Poetry and Myth — picked by fans

Until reading this book (and Stone above), I had accepted that the historical version of womanhood we are given was accurate. While I had been a girl who liked to be active, ride horses, and involve myself in big questions, I believed I was a bizarre example of emerging feminism, not the inheritor of a powerful legacy.

Mayor’s book showed me that there have been women for thousands of years who owned and managed themselves. There was a historical example for me to point towards. The Amazons were real women who lived in communities that were uniquely sovereign. It made my being quake in the profundity of what it meant for a woman today to point to a woman 2000 years ago and say, “Me too” in a whole new way.

Once, on a weeks-long gig far from home, I stayed in a bare attic room with no TV, no internet, not even a radio. I didn’t mind. I had this translation of the Odyssey to settle down with every evening after work. I would think about it all day long: the vivid language, the fantastical events, the struggle and suffering of the protagonist. Reading it was like going to a technicolor movie every night, except that the movie was inside my head.

Talk about an essential human story—the Odyssey is four thousand years old, but its characters have the same emotions, fears, vices, and virtues we have today. Their struggles make my heart race and my eyes tear up. My imagination goes into overdrive, and I revel in the wonder.

The Metamorphoses, or Transformations, by the Roman poet Ovid is one of the most-read books of ancient literature because of its hundreds of wonderful stories as well as the charm of its witty and ironic author.

Since the stories he relates are all myths and legends, the Metamorphoses amounts to a virtual handbook of classical mythology. The theme of supernatural transformation runs through them all, portraying a world forever in flux, as someone or something is marvelously and surprisingly changed in some large or small way.

I like the vibrant new translation by Stephanie McCarter.

The ancient Greeks were not only good at making serious art such as epics and tragedies, they were also good at making fun of them in literature and art.

In the realm of art, the most abundant source of humor is painted vases, which were manufactured mostly for the use of men at symposia, or drinking parties.

Greek mythology was a favorite subject of the vase painters, and Mitchell’s richly-illustrated study of humorous vases provides a fun and unusual window into ancient burlesque treatments of Greek myths and legends.  

I have researched and written about human evolution and I was delighted to see the publication of Laura Spinney’s book on one of the most intriguing mysteries in history: why are most of the European languages, several North Indian languages and some Persian languages related?

The parallels between the evolution of life and language are especially strong, and they come together in this quest, with the spread of the languages emerging from a nomadic tribe, the Yamnaya, who lived just north of the Caspian Sea around 5000 years ago.

This more recent history – though still deeper than the old history based on only written sources – is also part of the great epic story of CO2.

This early study of the young Nietzsche is probably the most personal choice as it returns me to an earlier self who first encountered Nietzsche as an undergraduate in the 1960s. In one sense this was my first introduction to what later became known as `Continental Philosophy’. But more than this, it demonstrated that there were fundamental issues and problems that were simply evaded and occluded by the standard histories of philosophy and European culture. The passion to return to the ancient world as a way of understanding the modern world has remain with me to the present. Nietzsche’s reflections on tragedy and `the tragic age’ struck me as a vital source of radical questions and pointed toward problems that remain with me to the present day: the Indo-European language roots of the first thinkers, the seminal role of Homer and Homeric poetry within the problematics of thought, the rejection… show more.

Anthony has synthesized a vast literature on historical linguistics and archaeology to explain the origins of the first steppe nomads on the South Russian steppes in the fourth millennium B.C.

In my opinion, Anthony does an outstanding job of explaining the origins and distribution of the speakers of Indo-European languages whose migrations have defined the linguistic map from Ireland to India. Subsequent DNA analysis of the populations of Yamnaya steppe culture has confirmed his thesis based on linguistic evidence and archaeology.

I recommend this book as the fundamental work for any study of the early Indo-European-speaking nomads.

This important volume traces a picture of European prehistory, from the earliest agricultural communities of the Neolithic period to the Roman world. Stuart Piggott, who was a great English scholar of the twentieth century, guides us here to understand the ancient roots of facts and situations that have gradually evolved up to the history we know well.

I love stories peppered with Yiddish. Youngsters should know “schlep” and “chutzpah,” Right? And clever riffs on traditional tales are another favorite. Hence The Little Red Hen and the Passover Matzah immediately became my Passover must-read-to-the grandchild-choice. I also love to laugh and there are plenty of giggles in this book.

When Sheep, Horse, and Dog don’t help the Little Red Hen prepare for the holiday she finally gets upset but then, ever aware of the mitzvah of feeding the hungry, she gives in and invites all of them to her seder table. I must admit that after many years of preparing seders and also leading them, I’ve often felt like the Little Red Hen. “Hey, where are the helping hands here?” And, like her, I’m glad when everyone sits down to celebrate together.

This is a twisted romantic suspense that delivers a gripping read.

Romance and suspense merge when a decade-old secret turns deadly. The opening chapter thrust me into the murder of Reagan Asher’s grandmother. Not getting what they wanted, the culprits set their sights on Reagan. Passed events become the premise of this novel, and Reagan must come to terms with her grandmother’s death and her father’s betrayal to stay alive and uncover the truth.

The unpredictable nature of this story was a winner for me.